This article has been submitted by Keshavdev J.S for the CLATGyan Blog Post Writing Competition. If you think this article is a good read, ‘Like’ this article on Facebook (the button is at the bottom of this piece) or post a comment using the ‘comments’ section below.

“Accept what you cannot change. Change what you cannot accept.”

These are the most hauntingly curious lines I’ve ever read in my life. Isn’t everything bound by these words, because isn’t everything, in itself, bound by change? In fact, it is that same change which is making me write this article now.

Let me not bore you with the million age-old clichés about how one expects his/her life to become once he/she lands a seat in an NLU. We all think the same things. Even I did, back then. All those are irrelevant. For, as life in the NLU begins, lessons will be unlearnt and all delusions cleared.

1. If you were a firm believer in Nietzsche’s words: “What does not destroy me, makes me strong.”, you would soon realize that you were kidding yourself all the while.

2. If you used to believe that it would be better to die like a lion than to live like a donkey, you would do good to not believe it anymore, because you might as well find yourself dying like a donkey. It is true, there is no use being a fool about it.

3. If you know that you are the best at something, always remember that there is someone else who is just generally accepted by everyone to be better.

4. If you thought you wouldn’t miss home when you left, you thought wrong.

5. If you had a crappy dinner in the mess, you would still be happy. Usual standards are way lower than crappy.

6. If you find yourself in the ‘coolest’ gang of friends within the first week of college, don’t worry. It is only temporary.

7. If you think everyone else is as selfless and well-meaning as you are, you’ve watched too much TV.

8. If you feel lazy to seize any remote opportunity, never fear. Others aren’t. They seize their opportunities, and yours too, if they want.

9. If you count your chickens before they hatch, you might always end up with a wrong number. Those eggs might never hatch, for all I know.

10. If, after reading all this, you think that life is morbid in an NLU, you will still have the most fun you ever had.

Life in an NLU is rarely what you want it to be, and never what you thought it would be. Before you know it, your ego takes a back seat and stays quiet about the things that always used to matter.

As Martin Luther King says, “The day you begin to stay quiet about the things that matter, you begin to die.” I am not one to judge whether he was right or wrong in saying that. After all, is it the death of one person, or the birth of another?

You may always lie to the world, you may always lie to your life and to yourself, but somewhere down the line, you will realize that your life can never lie to you. It is at that moment when you realize the difference between who you are, who you were, and who you wanted to become.

Change- the demon or the angel. It happens. Script it or accept it. It is your path after all, whether trodden or left untrodden.

Whatever the change does is make things the way they are. It doesn’t mean that it is the way things have to be. Life is what one makes it. And the most beautiful thing about change is that it is never permanent. Things can always change back, if you want it, when you want it, as you allow it. Whoever you are, be it. Everybody else is taken.

So, as they all say, it is not the rollercoaster journey in an NLU that counts. Ultimately, it is the joy of the ride, and what you made of it.

P.S: This article was initially published and featured in www.legallyindia.com in the blogging department.

Link: http://www.legallyindia.com/Blogs/Entry/nlus-they-happen-to-you